


honesty would be a good place to start

by thekatriarch



Series: jyn & cassian have a conversation [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:48:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21625579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekatriarch/pseuds/thekatriarch
Summary: Cassian and Jyn have a conversation
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Series: jyn & cassian have a conversation [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2113449
Comments: 10
Kudos: 69





	honesty would be a good place to start

“So what happened? When you were six?”

She had climbed up the ladder and was looking at him from the hole in the floor. He glanced at her, just briefly. What was she doing here?

He'd climbed up here to get away from her, to get away from everyone, because he felt so sick and ashamed after their argument. It had been a quiet half hour or so and he had started to feel calmer, less disgusted with himself, less angry at her, but hearing her voice was unsettling him again. He didn’t want to have another argument with her, and he didn’t want to ask for her forgiveness, because he hadn’t done anything wrong. 

“What do you want from me, Jyn?” he asked, not looking at her.

“Honesty.” She climbed the rest of the way into the hold. “Would be a good place to start. You did go up there to kill him.” Her voice was level now; not so angry. He glanced at her again, but looking at her face churned something up inside him, some stew of emotions he didn’t want to think about, so he looked away.

“Yes,” he admitted. “That’s what I was supposed to do. But I didn’t. I was right there. I had a clean shot. And I didn’t take it.” 

“Why not?”

He shook his head, still not looking at her. “I don’t know.” Because he kept seeing her face in his mind every time he tried. Kept seeing her like she’d been when he found her on Jedha, after she’d watched the message, how shattered she’d been, how lost. Because he believed her about what the message had said. Because it didn’t feel right.

“And I didn’t call in that air support, either. I don’t know why they were there.”

“I believe you,” she said, and he managed to meet her eyes for a moment before he looked away again. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, “that you had to see him die.”

She shrugged. “At least I got to see him at all.”

For a few minutes, no one said anything. The silence was heavy.

“My house fell on top of me,” he said finally, answering the question she had asked before. “We were being invaded. Bombs going off everywhere, people shooting each other in the streets. You know. My mother threw herself over me when everything started to fall. Killed her right away. I was buried there in the rubble for hours with her on top of me. The whole side of her head was caved in. I had her blood in my mouth. I thought I was going to die, but someone finally dug me out.” He didn’t tell this story often, maybe once or twice in his life, but she’d grown up in a warzone, too, so he knew she’d understand. 

“And then what?”

“The usual stuff. Hiding out, learning to build IEDs and use a blaster. Try to kill them before they kill you. Same stuff you were doing with Saw Gerrera. Were there a lot of kids in your cell?”

“A few,” she said. “Not many.”

“Ours had a lot of kids, at first. Lot of orphans. Started out throwing rocks at the clone troopers, to distract them so our people could come up and get them from the other side. Nobody really thought they’d shoot at kids throwing rocks, but they did.”

They were quiet again, and it occurred to him suddenly how close she was to him. There wasn’t a lot of room in the small hold and she was sitting next to him. Their hands were almost touching. He looked at them, trying not to look like he was looking at them. Their little fingers lay right next to each other, no more than a millimeter between them. If he moved even a little, they would touch.

He wasn’t sure why it should matter. Not like he hadn’t been dragging her around by the hand or the arm this entire mission. But this felt different, like if he touched her hand now, that was going to mean something, and that, of course, was out of the question. But part of him wanted to. He held as still as possible.

“We used to have contests,” she said. “To see who could build a bomb the fastest.”

“We did that too. Kids are stupid. I knew a bunch of kids who died playing that game.”

“Yeah.” Her finger bumped against his and he felt it like she’d burned him. He wanted to pull his hand away, but he left it where it was.

“How old were you,” he asked, “when you started living with Saw?”

“Young,” she said. “Seven or eight.” Her little finger was lying on top of his now, and something warm was flowing into his body where they made contact. “But ‘living’ doesn’t seem like the right word for it.”

It was quiet again. Neither of them moved. He was almost holding his breath. This was still salvageable. If nothing else happened. He could still walk away. Nothing had happened that couldn’t be ignored, or explained away. Just a little brush of the fingers. That could be an accident.

But his hand was inching closer to her, just barely. Stop it, Cassian. Have you lost your mind? Closer. Past the point where it could be written off as accidental. Her fingers gently closed around his. Neither of them spoke, or moved, or did anything to acknowledge what had happened. They just sat there, hand in hand, not looking at each other, not speaking, for a long time.


End file.
